Wednesday, 25 May 2016

Charles Kingsley was, at various times, Regius Professor of
Modern History at the University of Cambridge, Tutor to the future King Edward
VII, Rector of Eversley, Canon of Westminster Abbey and the author of The Water Babies, Hereward the Wake and
Westward Ho!. Of his many books, one that is less familiar is Glaucus that pays homage to the
burgeoning interest in marine Natural History during the mid Nineteenth
Century. It was published in 1855, having first appeared in the North British Review of November 1854,
and the main difference in the two versions is the addition of examples of
creatures from fresh waters in the book, presaging The Water Babies.

Glaucus contains
descriptions of a wide range of algae, invertebrates and vertebrates found
around the coast of Southern Britain, the result of collecting trips on the
rocky, and sandy, shores of Torbay and from dredging expeditions. Fanny,
Charles' wife, spent a period of convalescence at Livermead House in Torquay
(see above) and Charles stayed with her for several months in the spring of
1854, spending much of his time on his hobby. His passion for Natural History,
and for marine biology, was inspired by reading Philip Henry Gosse's books The Aquarium and A Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire Coast and there are
frequent references to these in Glaucus,
often with quotations:

The brilliant plates in Mr Gosse's
"Aquarium"...

First and foremost [among works on
Natural History], certainly, come Mr Gosse's books

Mr Gosse, ..by his delightful and,
happily, well-known books has done more for the study of marine zoology than
any other living man.

..Mr Gosse, in his charming "Naturalist's
Rambles on the Devonshire Coast"..

It is clear that Kingsley, nine years younger than Gosse,
had great admiration for the knowledge, and communication skills, of the
older man. Gosse had previously visited Torquay in 1852 [1], and the time spent
there, and in Ilfracombe (Kingsley also moved from Torquay to North Devon),
resulted in A Naturalist's Rambles on the
Devonshire Coast. Kingsley not only eulogised Gosse in Glaucus, he also recommended to anyone that would listen that they
should take field courses offered by Henry Gosse at the time, such was his
significance. It was to Gosse, in London, that Kingsley sent collections that
he had made around Torbay and Henry confirmed his identifications.

The two men became good friends and it was not only marine
Natural History that they had in common, as they must have discovered early in
their conversations. Both came from families that had earlier hit hard times, both loved poetry and both were devout Christians, Gosse
being a member of the Brethren and Kingsley a priest in the Church of England.
They shared a strong dislike of Roman Catholicism, and High Anglicanism, and
this was expressed openly in their writing (although Kingsley did use the term
"Hanoverian rats" for brown rats, a term that he may have borrowed
from the staunchly Catholic Charles Waterton). Whereas Henry Gosse was to become the leader of his own small group
of Brethren, to whom he preached each Sunday, Kingsley was a country rector and
ended as a Canon of Westminster Abbey, with many coming to hear his sermons,
despite his tendency to stutter [2].

Another contrast between the two men was the lack
of any wish to become part of the Establishment shown by Gosse, and the pleasure in
recognition at Court shown by Kingsley, that included many invitations to meet
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert [2]. They also differed in their formal education, Kingsley
being a student at Cambridge University while Gosse was largely self educated,
having left school to work as a clerk at 16; then being sent to Newfoundland
for similar employment when he was just 17 years old [3]. However, one of his
aunts was an enthusiastic Naturalist and showed the young Henry many creatures on the
shore around Poole in Dorset, just has she had done her own son, Thomas Bell, who trained as a surgeon
and whose interest in marine organisms led to his appointment as Professor of
Zoology at King's College London. Bell was an important contact for Henry when
he was seeking to publish his first book, based on his experiences of the
Natural History of Newfoundland and, in time, Henry Gosse, like Bell, was recognised for his
scientific achievements in being made a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Gosse and Kingsley reacted differently to developing ideas
on geological time scales, and evolution, current in the first half of the Nineteenth Century,
culminating in Darwin's On the Origin of
Species of 1859. Gosse knew that the presence of fossils and
rock strata showed that the Earth had been in existence for many millions of
years but, as a literalist who believed in the description of Creation in
The Holy Bible, then produced a theory that attempted to resolve the two positions. His book, Omphalos, was published in 1857. Put simply, Gosse theorised that Creation took place as described in Genesis,
but that all the strata and fossils were prochronic, or before time, being
created with the impression of some previous existence. Clearly the idea is
preposterous and it was derided by both the scientific and religious
communities.

Taking time to respond after reading Omphalos, Kingsley wrote to
Gosse in 1858 [3], stating:

..Nothing can be fairer than the
way in which you state the evidence for the microchronology [this is a
reference to the first section of Omphalos
in which Gosse sets out the evidence for geological time scales – the
macrochronology, not microchronology, as Kingsley states [3]]. That at once
bound me to listen respectfully to all you had to say after. And, much as I
kicked and winced at first, nothing, I find, can be sounder than your parallels
and precedents [where Gosse refers to a wide range of organisms that had
just been created]. The one case of the coccus-mother (though every conceivable
instance goes to prove your argument) would be enough for me, assuming the act
of absolute creation. Assuming that – which I have always assumed, as fully as you –
shall I tell you the truth? It is best. Your book is the first that ever made
me doubt it, and I fear it will make hundreds do so. Your book tends to prove
this – that if we accept the fact of absolute creation, God becomes a Deus quidam deceptor. I do not mean
merely in the case of fossils which pretend
to be the bones of dead animals; but in the one single case of your newly
created scars on the pandanus trunk, and your newly created Adam's navel, you
make God tell a lie..

In the letter, Kingsley shows his support for Creation, but
clearly not for the theory put forward in Omphalos
for prochronic existence. His opposition hinged on his view that Gosse was
proposing an idea that appeared to show that God was deceiving us. Even after
Darwin published On the Origin of Species
in 1859, Gosse continued to maintain a literal Creationist stance, as did some
other noted figures, like the French entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre [4].
Kingsley didn't feel the theory of evolution to be a threat to his religious
beliefs and he was able to shift his views in the light of changing, and developing,
opinion. He was still a Creationist, as is clear in his letter to Gosse, but
with a looser view; that all organisms were designed by God and could then
become subject to change, also under the control of the Creator. In Glaucus, published in 1855, before both Omphalos (1857) and On the Origin of Species (1859), Kingsley had written:

Let us speak freely a few words on
this important matter. Geology has disproved the old popular belief that the
universe was brought into being, as it now exists, by a single fiat. We know
that the work has been gradual: that the earth "In tracts of fluent heat
began, The seeming prey of cyclic storms, The home of seeming random forms,
Till, at the last, arose the man." And we know, also, that these forms, seeming
random as they are, have appeared according to a law, which, as far as we can
judge, has been only the whole one of progress, - lower animals (though we
cannot say, the lowest) appearing first, and man, the highest mammal, "the
roof and crown of things," one of the latest in the series..

..Let us, therefore, say boldly,
that there has been a "progress of species," and there may be again,
in the true sense of that term: but say, as boldly, that the Transmutation
theory is not one of a progress of species
at all, which would be a change in the idea of the species, taking place in the
Divine Mind, - in plain words, the creation of a new species. What the
Transmutationists really mean, if they would express themselves clearly, or
carefully analyze their own notions, is, a physical and actual change, not of
species, but of individuals, of
already existing living beings, created according to one idea, into other
living beings, created according to another idea.

It was thus relatively easy for Kingsley to become a proponent
of the ideas set out in On the Origin of
Species four years later and his support was appreciated by
Darwin. In Fraser's magazine [5], Kingsley wrote:

..if any one shall hint to us that
we and the birds may have sprung originally from the same type; that the
difference between our intellect and theirs is one of degree, and not of kind,
we may believe or doubt: but in either case we shall not be greatly moved. So
much the better for the birds, we will say, and none the worse for us. You
raise the birds towards us, but you do not lower us towards them. What we are,
we are by the grace of God. Our own powers and the burden of them we know full
well. It does not lessen their dignity or their beauty in our eyes to hear that
the birds of the air partake, even a little, of the same gifts of God as we. Of
old said St Guthlac in Crowland, as the swallows sat upon his knee, "He
who leads his life according to the will of God, to him the wild deer and wild
birds draw more near;" and this new theory of yours may prove St Guthlac
right. St Francis, too, he called the birds his brothers. Whether he was
correct, either theologically or zoologically, he was plainly free from that
fear of being mistaken for an ape, which haunts so many in these modern times..

This view, supporting the similarities between living
organisms, and thus the possibility of evolution, also provides opposition to
the view, held by many literal Creationists, that everything was created for
the benefit of humans. As Lynn Barber points out [6]:

..Kingsley exposed the question of
usefulness to man for what it was: a red herring. The existence of so many
different species in Nature was, he asserted, inexplicable on any
anthropocentric basis.. ..There was no need
to prove that everything in Nature was created for man's benefit. There was no
scriptural authority for suggesting that it was. Kingsley's explanation was
sufficient. God had created everything for His own enjoyment.

Given their opposition, it is difficult to imagine that
Kingsley and Gosse could ever meet again on close terms although, as with Kingsley's
help given to Henry over his son's application for a position at the British
Museum Library, respect was not lost between the two men. Conflicts based on
differences of opinion on the writings in Holy Books often seem to occur and the Creation debate certainly caused conflicts for some Christian believers in the
Nineteenth Century and the debate continues today. It is difficult to sympathise
with Henry Gosse on this issue and the flexible approach of Kingsley fits the
evidence much better. Such conflicts are confusing when viewed from the outside
and I am grateful that I do not believe in the supernatural.

Omphalos intrigues
me and I have posted about the book before [7]. We know that Henry Gosse was
challenged, it was the time of the painful fatal illness of his first wife, and
he was very conscious that the Second Coming was imminent. Even those reasons
cannot explain why he came up with the idea of prochronic existence and then be
surprised that others didn't go along with it. Unfortunately, Gosse was unable to move his position because he was constrained by the straitjacket of
his own religious beliefs.

[1] Ann Thwaite (2002) Glimpses
of the Wonderful: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse 1810-1888. London, Faber
and Faber.

[2] Susan Chitty (1974) The
Beast and the Monk: A Life of Charles Kingsley. London, Hodder and
Stoughton.

[3] Edmund Gosse (1896) The
Naturalist of the Sea-Shore: the Life of Philip Henry Gosse. London,
William Heinemann.

Tuesday, 17 May 2016

Occasionally, I am asked to give my views and opinions on
various subjects and I find the exercise difficult, preferring to write about
the views and opinions of others. This year, my Alma Mater has an important anniversary and, as part of the
celebrations, the University invited Alumni to write short pieces under
different headings, feeling that we had worthwhile things to say. This is what I came up with (using the headings that we
were given).

Life's turning points

I was a Freshman in 1965/6 (that's me in the picture above,
taken on a 1st year field trip). Many things stay in my memory of that year:
arriving at the University; buying an undergraduate gown (yes, really); buying
a University scarf (very 1960s); finding the first lectures and practical
classes a bit scary; and making new "friends", some of whom I lost
contact with after a day. It was a time of many changes and I was certainly aware
that I had left home and that there were new experiences
ahead. As the first member of my family to attend University, there was also a
feeling of pride and an awareness of being part of an important institution.

After three years, I was ready for new challenges, but didn't
want undergraduate years to end. They were that good.

Life's turning points

University courses delivered some major surprises. We
covered the basics of the three science subjects that I had chosen during the
first year, but this was made pleasurable because we were taught by experts in each
field, all being interested in teaching. I found it thrilling to be introduced to areas of study about which I
knew very little and one stand-out course was a series of lectures on the History
of Science. We started with Greek philosophy, and my admiration for the
original thinking of Democritus and Aristotle continues to this day. The course
put the topics I studied into context and all degree programmes should do this.
We can have the feeling that the contemporary view is the "correct"
one and studying the history of a subject shows that this may, or may not, be the
case.

Life's turning points

Small children seem so curious about the world around them
and are always asking questions, some of them very difficult to answer. As we
grow, the number of spoken questions becomes less and we find out more for
ourselves or, if we are passive, we accept things that we are told. Information
may come from a parent, a teacher, books, sources on the internet, or
television and radio programmes. However, it is essential to retain a child-like
curiosity, to question what we receive and to fight the passive response. That's
what education is all about – the more we learn, the more there is to learn.

Work

Conventions are observed in the workplace and at social
gatherings. Some of these are valuable, others just a matter of formality, but
they give us a framework for interactions and for behaviour. There are also unnecessary
conventions and we shouldn't be afraid to question them, just as we shouldn't
be afraid of challenging widely-accepted viewpoints. Every individual is unique,
and we all have our own views as a result: as long as we think out our position
on any issue, we should trust our own judgement.

Health and wellbeing

In developed Western cultures, we are obsessed with health
and ageing. In part, it comes from the knowledge that we are all going to die
and we resist that idea, and the signs that death is getting closer. Our
susceptibility to illnesses, and to ageing, is affected by our genes and the
way that the products they code react within the environment, be that within a
cell, an individual, or the world around us. Recent medical research seems to
focus on genes and cells, often ignoring the wider environment. It could be argued
that the research conducted in medical genetics will result in increased
longevity, while the world beyond individual humans will become more and more
impoverished. As we obsess about our own fears, we seem less interested in the
environment in which we live and which supplies many of our needs, both
physical and emotional.

Spirituality

We all have explanations for things that we don't understand:
these might come in the theories of scientists, or the belief in a Superior Being.
These two positions have been considered irreconcilable, but there are many
scientists with strong religious beliefs. There are also many varieties of
religion, all offering explanations for everything, but trouble results when
the religion becomes organised and ceases to be solely personal. We've all had
people knock at our door, whether in our homes, Dorm, or wherever we are
living, to tell us about their views and why we should take their viewpoint.
These proselytisers of organised religion are convinced they are right and, by
implication, that those with other views are wrong. As we all know, this can
lead to schism, family and community conflicts, and even wars. Shouldn't we
accept that each individual is entitled to their own view and that what is right
for one person might not be right for another?

Spirituality

Have you ever had the experience of listening to a piece of
music and having a spine-tingling sensation and a feeling of being taken to
another place? There are some pieces of music that do this for me over and over
again, especially if I am in the right mood and listening intently. Can this
experience be considered to be spiritual? The answer comes in whether one
believes in the supernatural, or whether the deep feelings engendered are just the
result of nerve impulses and chemicals travelling through one's body. I favour
the latter explanation, but have no idea why some pieces of music have this
effect and others not. Although I think we will never understand the nature of
the mechanisms involved (some scientists probably think that we will), I don't
feel the need to look for supernatural explanations.

Family

Having my own family was never a priority; nor was pushing ahead
in a career. I knew that I was fascinated by Natural History and was delighted
that this took me to some interesting places, with agreeable research colleagues.
I feel very lucky to have been able to teach the subject and I have also been fortunate in
that my wife certainly did want to have a family. The result is two wonderful
children who have given me so much and who have gone on to successful
independent lives. My son lives with his partner in a beautiful house in
Islington and my daughter was married last autumn in a lovely ceremony in Norfolk.
It took weeks to come down from the glowing feeling of the day and, as Bob
Dylan remarked about parenthood in his Sign
on the Window, "that must be what it's all about".

Monday, 2 May 2016

Before the invention of powered flying machines, humans could only move
through the air using balloons carried by winds. Now we can travel more or less
anywhere at speed, and we are no longer confined to Earth, so the mystique
of flying is much less that it was hundreds of years ago. Nevertheless, we are
fascinated by birds because they evolved powered flight using their own bodies
and there has always been a rich mythology attached to birds and the places that
they can reach. Using our imagination, we borrowed one of their major attributes –
wings – and used these in our depiction of flying creatures like angels that
are portrayed as humans with bird wings that enable them to fly between Earth
and Heaven. This image has persisted for centuries and probably originated
in statues of Greek goddesses, such as Nike, that have a clothed human form, with wings in
addition to arms (when they are not broken off... see above).

In paintings, most angels are shown having predominantly
white wings, an example being Guercino's St
Sebastian succoured by angels (below, upper), although there are exceptions
to this convention, as seen in works by Fra Angelico (below, second) and
Veronese (below, third). Bright colour was a common feature of places of Christian
worship in the first half of the last millennium, so it is not surprising that
religious paintings are similarly brightly coloured. White wings, however, have
another symbolic role. They remind us of doves, released as symbols of peace
and reconciliation, and long portrayed in paintings as representing the Holy
Spirit, as in the Double Trinity of Murillo (below, bottom).

If white is good, then black is evil in western Culture and
birds like crows have a quite different reputation to that enjoyed by doves.
They are known from ancient folklore as bringers of bad luck and even death [1],
and they are potent symbols of evil in paintings, such as those by Giovanni
Bellini (below, upper) and Mantegna (below, middle). Even though these illustrations
are details from larger works, the prominence, and isolation, of the birds conveys
a powerful message. Crows add to the forbidding tone of Van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows (below, bottom),
painted shortly before he died from infection following a self-inflicted
gunshot wound. Although the overall colours of the painting convey gloom, imagine
how the work would look without the crows and then think whether the atmosphere
would be more, or less, menacing.

From mythology then, we conclude that white, or brightly
coloured, wings are features of good angels, while evil angels, or angels of
death, have black wings. In contemporary culture, we extend this metaphor by
using capes; items of clothing designed originally to provide freedom of movement. Note
that Superman (below) has a red cape that is fastened at the shoulders, just like angel
wings. We know that Superman can fly, and that he came from another world, and we
also know that flight was achieved through superhuman powers, just like those
of angels. The cape is a symbol of Superman's ability to fly, just as
bird wings are for angels, and it separates him from the merely human.

Although they do not appear in the same fantasy, Darth Vader
of Star Wars (below) represents the antithesis to Superman. We see him as an imposing
figure in black with a black cape held at the shoulders, just like that of
Superman. The colour reminds us of evil and the visual imagery works before we ever know of Darth Vader's intentions
(by the way, the "baddies" often wore black hats in early Western movies).

It is fun to think of Superman as a good angel (with
some messianic qualities) and Darth Vader as an evil angel, but how odd they would look
if earlier conventions had been followed and they were given bird wings of an
appropriate colour instead of capes. Can you imagine it?